Taleban telly ban

BBC News, 8 July 1998

The Taleban movement in Afghanistan has given residents 15 days to
throw out their television sets, videos and satellite dishes in line
with its version of Islam.

After the deadline, militia will confiscate and destroy televisions
because, Taleban radio said, film and music leads to moral
corruption.

The Taleban's self-styled ministry for Promoting Virtue and Preventing
Vice says the move is necessary because people in Taleban-controlled
areas are still watching television despite previous bans.

The fiercely Islamic Taleban took power in Kabul in 1996 and control
over two-thirds of the country. In the past, the Taleban authorities
have smashed or even publicly hanged television sets and burned stocks
of cinema films declaring them to be un-Islamic.

Polluting society

But they allowed people to keep TVs and videos as long as they were
not using them, as well as tolerating the smuggling of Japanese
televisions through Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Spot the aerial: Kabul has been declared a TV-free zone

Now they say a harder line is necessary, as large numbers of people,
particularly the young, continue to watch videos and satellite
channels. According to a senior Taleban official, such un-Islamic
acts are polluting society and distracting people from worshipping
God.

But correspondents say hundreds of households still secretly watch
television through satellite dishes made from bicycle wheels, cooking
pots or electric fans. The move will be a blow to ordinary Afghans who
depend on surreptitious TV viewing or illegal Hindi videos for their
only entertainment in a land blighted by war and poverty.